


Farewell, My Concubine

by Puniyo



Series: Concubine [6]
Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: M/M, Mention of Death, Pagan Rituals, Psychological Drama, Sexual Situations, alternative universe, changes in POV, good dose of angst, mention of violence and blood, relationship triangle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-18 21:54:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17589113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Puniyo/pseuds/Puniyo
Summary: With the Empire and the East at the verge of war, what can one dragonfly do?The last installment for Concubine.COMPLETED [02-02-2019]





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> Dear all, here comes the last installment for Concubine. I want to thank for all of you who stayed for the ride and who were not put off by a dark plot. This series is some sort of healing for me so I'm glad to go through this journey with all of you. 
> 
> Disclaimer: This is a FICTIONAL piece. In no ways it reflects the people mention or the personal ideas of the author. Art for art's sake.
> 
> Note: Title inspired by the movie of the same name. A masterpiece I must say.

The sky melts the fences between the patient meadows of heavens and the pastures of grief of the underworld, its curtains flooding with the growing tide of crimson and orange of the blazes that spread like a virus on the crowns of the cypresses. Ribbons of scorching heat gnaw the branches and spit the fruitless seeds, consuming with its anger all it touches. The burnt leaves are reflected on the crystalline surface of the lake and each one that falls corrupts the water to poison.

The wails of the leopardess reach him, her pleads for help translated into the chaotic stir of his pulse and she calls for him, louder and louder, until it threatens to tear apart his eardrums. The leopardess, the forest, Javier, he has to save them from the wild slaughter. Yuzuru runs to the thicket of trees, the maze shifting in its confused persecution of cannibal flames. He runs between the marred trunks and the violated boughs, their self-defense barrier so savagely vicious that he trips on the roots that coil around his ankles to his shins, hauling him down. The twigs cut his elbows and the earth scrape his knees but the blood of his wounds stop their frenzied assaults as he shuts his eyes on the falling thorns aiming at his sight.

‘Yuzuru!’

Patrick lunges to the younger man’s side, covering his naked shoulders with his own pelt of copper hare. He too is smeared with the ashes of the tortured bushes and scarred by the barbs of the dying brambles.

‘We have to go back. We cannot allow them to find us.’ He helps Yuzuru to his feet, offering him his bow and his arrows.

‘Who?’ The missiles weight on the mark of the flower of the night as he puts on the quiver. The arrows are as if they were made of lead and not feathers. ‘What is happening?’

‘The empire,’ Patrick pulls him by the wrist, ‘the empire is burning the forest. We have to go.’

‘No.’ Yuzuru shakes his head vigorously. ‘It’s impossible.’

‘The empire has always waited for this moment.’

‘He would never do it.’

‘He is killing us!’

‘No!’ Another sharp cry of the leopardess resonates in the walls of his veins and he hisses of the raw spasm in his temples. ‘The forest let in him! She protected him like I was, like the first time we watched the tigress dance. She is not wrong, Patrick, and she is calling me now!’ He turns around, ready to follow the trail of the pursuit. ‘Please don’t stop me. Please.’

The Stag chief kisses the inside of Yuzuru’s wrist, the one he held, with a tremor of jealousy and unwavering loyalty. ‘I serve only you, my huntress.’

In the reassuring comfort of their unspoken pact, both men complete the map of the woodland, the paths opening to the authority of their marks. The heart of the forest is still the same when they reach there, the same untouched soil of sage and powdery silver dust. The leopardess lies on Javier’s lap, she more of a terrified cub, purring with her broken moans, and not with the strength of a mother. The emperor runs his fingers through her ruptured rosettes, he too dazed and frightened at life escaping through her majestic silhouette, but she crawls away to Yuzuru as she catches sight of him.

‘I’m sorry.’ The young man kneels next to her, embracing the queen animal by the neck, his tears trickling to her nose. ‘I’m sorry.’ Her warm puffs of air, feeble, almost perishing as the moon falls to its slumber are playful fondles in the distance between man and deity. It is serene the way the beast nudges to his arms, seeking refuge for the laceration on her belly that doesn’t cease to bleed. ‘I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.’ He kisses the top of her head, inhaling all her pain, all of it, that he bites his lips to suppress his own cry from the twisting of his guts, vile and vindictively nauseating, the bitterness of the bile mixing with the metallic pool on his mouth.

‘Javier,’ Yuzuru chokes on his own sobbing, ‘please stop this. Please don’t hurt us anymore.’

The emperor walks to both preys but the general throws his sword at his feet, the blade drilling into the earth and forbidding his advances.

‘We will not bow to the empire.’ Patrick crouches next to Yuzuru, who coughs until he almost vomits from the torture. ‘But I beg you,’ He digs his fingers into the dirt, the ashes corroding his nails, ‘spare my people. Spare my flower of the night.’

Javier shakes his head as he pulls out the weapon and he offers it back to the man who was once in his court. His hazelnut curls brush the severed tail of the leopardess as he lowers his forehead to the ground, arms extended in the same prayer bestowed by his own Stag.

‘I would never hurt my concubine.’ He kisses the mint-infused soil, drinking of the despair of the burnt foliage too. ‘I never wanted the East.’

What else can a dead man wish for?

_You are everything and nothing, my Yuzuru._

In the silence of the orange starry sky, the young man holds to his neck, the palm of his hand scrapping his throat trying to free himself from the sudden invisible grasp on his Adam’s apple, the same one that shoved him over the precipice, the same one that kept him under the ocean so he would drown. His body is visibly shaking, the dread of another slap and another whip plowing him, when the amethyst armor, scales of twin head cobras, and the jade slab of a butterfly tied at the waist, gallops to where they are.

‘My Lord.’

An illusion of his own mind that shatters when the rest of the soldiers arrive, their horses unsettled by the roar of the leopardess, one that she still musters amidst her vanishing conscience. Long hair in a braid and light feet, a mane of white and not gold, Yuzuru closes his eyes for a split second, laughing at his own pathetic cage. He holds tighter to the injured animal, the beatings of their heart in the same rhythm.

_You are still mine, my Yuzuru._

What else can a dead man wish for?

‘Release the emperor.’ Her voice is so different from his, the pitch lacking the arresting dominance and the timbre missing the witchcraft to rewrite the stars. ‘In the court you have already imprisoned him with your perversity. Release him now!’ The empress’ shouts startle even the fire that consumed the forest with its hateful fever.

‘Please stop.’ Yuzuru stands up, walking past Javier, each step crippled as he tumbles, his frail frame at the mercy of the whole army. ‘When will it be enough?’ His words are not for her but to the crest carved on her breastplate. The equinox blossom branded on her just as in his own skin. ‘When, my Lord?’

‘I know you.’ She cramps the reins around her hands until her knuckles become pale, the bewilderment of anger lurking in her eyes as she recognizes the highest consort. ‘You are the one my father loved more than anything. More than he ever loved me.’

‘Your father was the best emperor we have ever seen.’ The ghostly clutch is again at his lungs, waiting to burst the organ at his disposal. ‘But he was a very selfish man.’

‘You lie!’

He chuckles as a tear falls down his cheek. ‘He was the cruelest man who has ever touched me.’

_Do you hate me now, my Yuzuru?_

‘I will not let you tarnish his name.’

‘What do you know? A princess of light.’ The young man drops his bow and the coat of pelts around his shoulders, baring nothing to her vision. ‘Am I not a moth? A cocoon that survives in the shadows but withers in the sun. What will you ever know?’ He opens his arms in the prelude of a distant thunder, of the howl of the mutilated wolf and the disrupted flight of the harrowed eagle. ‘He was wrong. You are not him. Please stop this madness.’

‘My father was never mistaken.’ She returns to the imperial guards, the moonlight shining on her armor. ‘Burn everything.’

‘No!’ The leopardess cries with him. ‘Please!’

‘Burn everything until nothing is left. Burn! The East shall not exist after tonight.’

The dissonance of the horseshoes as they rape the roots on the earth and crush the seeds of the unborn children echo in Yuzuru as if they were grinding his bones to oblivion and tearing each of his ligaments apart, he nothing but the broken pieces of puzzle never to be reassembled again.

The mark of the Stag in Javier slashes though his collarbone, the memories of his hunting vivid and clear under the flames and the promise to protect his prey engraved in their joined essence. He secures the pommel of his own sword laid next to Patrick and he throws it at the imperial mare, the blade penetrating the thigh. The horse falls, hurling the empress to the ground with its lack of balance. The jade butterfly splits into tiny pieces as she tries to stand.

‘No one will touch the forest.’ His voice is cold, sharp like the wind that blew at the edge of the cliff. With the torn tunic barely covering his frame, the streaks of vermillion mud and silver dust swirl around his legs are his own shield blessed by Nature. ‘Do you not know your place?’

She gathers the remnants of the green mineral, the wings of the slab crumbling even further in her palm. ‘By the name of the crimson phoenix, they will obey me.’

‘I am the emperor and I dare you to defy me!’ All of the men present, each one of the warriors bow, their faces almost flat on the dirt at the command of their leader, chosen by the gods and feared by the specters of the netherworld.

‘This is not the empire. This is not who you are meant to be!’ She refuses to kneel to him, the pride of her name clinging to her chest like a pendant that could not be taken off. ‘My father chose you.’

‘And I choose the forest.’ The gale of the night brings in its breath another tide of charcoal, of parched sandalwood and the sickening smoldering of carcasses. ‘For every tree you have burned, I will have one head at my feet.’

‘Stop Javier.’ Yuzuru holds him by the wrist, the scars of their marks throbbing at the mere contact of their skin. ‘Please. You are not him.’

_He will never be like me, my Yuzuru._

‘Please don’t. You are the emperor and you love your people. You would never harm them.’

‘I will.’ The emperor wipes a solitary tear, not knowing if it was his own or his flower’s, bringing it to his own lips. ‘I will do anything you want. Just a word, Yuzuru, and I will do it. I will be everything for you.’

_But you will never be nothing._

‘End this theater, Javier, and return to where you came from. This is not your land. This is not your destination. Return with your queen and your men, and forget we ever existed.’

‘Are you just my fantasy?’

The young man nods, his eyes staring at the void between the trees, averting Javier’s line of sight. Not a hallucination but a shadow, never to dwell in the day and perpetually hidden by the night. The hunter locks their gazes together, his fingers pressing on his prey’s jaw and chin. There is a storm reflected in Yuzuru’s dark marbles, the hurt of perishing cypresses and the sentience of all the awaited willows, the vestiges of their shared passion and tempestuous lust, the longing for time that never anchored and departed too soon.

‘Is this what you wish for?’

He hesitates but nods again, tilting slightly his head.

‘Answer me.’

‘Yes.’ He repeats that monosyllable until the emperor releases him. The shivering touch has him in his grasp for eternity. ‘I wish the dragonfly may perch on the stag’s antlers in another life.’

Javier kneels as the first drop of rain taps on the bridge of his nose and slides to his mouth. It tastes the same as Yuzuru’s tears. ‘I will find you.’ He kisses the back of his consort’s hand, a caress even more wistful and ardent than any of their sex. ‘My only concubine.’

The orange veil of the sky dissolves in the shower that pours as the two men part, the stars camouflaging themselves into the clouds. The flames on the crowns of leaves recede, the path of the destruction all over the East. Yuzuru lets the water soak his dark strands and the droplets wash away the silver dust, Javier’s semen, his own whiteness and sweat, the hunting quest fulfilled and to be forever infused in the soil and not his to have.

Your stars were wrong, my Lord.

_The stars are never wrong, my Yuzuru._

Javier treads past his empress, not once sparing a glance at her downward figure. He ignores her pleas and the promises of her love. She chuckles, laughing louder and louder, hysterical yells in her maniac hiccoughs that rocks her upper body like a broken mast.

‘It’s all because of him, isn’t it?’

The wintry wind offers her an answer she can’t understand.

‘Because he ensnared you with that filthy body.’ The shattered pieces of jade bury themselves under the mud, a butterfly metamorphosing into a parasite. ‘Because he…’ a river of red streams to her legs, flowing from the hips of her mare. ‘…he should have never been born.’

The empress pulls the blade embedded in her horse, the eloquent vermillion shining in the most beautiful color she had ever seen. At the sight of the young man’s exposed back in his enticing complexion, she runs to him, raising the sword as her sanity is replaced by the rage of her hatred.

‘Yuzuru!’

Patrick isn’t quick enough to unsheathe his own dagger as the empress stabs through skin and bones, the tip of the iron slicing tender flesh and thrusting into the deepest hollow of the heart. She falls back with the strength of her clash, her whole silhouette trembling at the horror of the murder she just committed. She shakes her head in denial, vomiting in dry, the rain weighing on her breasts. She can’t stand, only crawl, and her elbows drag her away from the arrival of death.

Yuzuru too falls to the damp, flooded roots, his mind blocking the sequence before his eyes just now. He extends his arm to the full moon, larger and rounder, drenched in crimson. It is not the moon but his hands that are stained in blood, boiling more than the flames themselves. It gushes from his chest to his abdomen, inundating his thighs and his manhood.

The is a tender purr at his neck, the growl so feeble and weak only he can hear it. Yuzuru sits immediately as the leopardess nudges closer to his collarbones. ‘No. Please.’ The animal licks his face, the touch so light it’s almost not there. He grabs her fur, the yellow and brown rosettes disappearing in the sea of red. ‘Don’t leave me.’ The sword is ingrained right at the core of the beast, the ribcage broken and all vitality already evaporated. ‘Please. Please. Please.’ It is undisturbed and serene the exhalation of the last breath, the last note sang in the language of instincts.

‘NO!’ He presses the corpse of the queen of the forest to his chest, still warm, crushing the whiskers of the muzzle and the skull to his sternum. ‘No! No! NO!’ He pulls the sword out, his fingers digging on the immensely large cut, massaging the heart for a beating of revival and a pump of awakening. He leans onto the limp body, trying to envelop in his embrace all of the leopardess. ‘Please don’t go.’ She still smells of the earthy aroma of the soil and the freshness of new sprouts in Spring. ‘No. Please no.’ His cries are muffled in her pelt, the crystalline globules of rain suspended on her spots.

_Be everything, my Yuzuru._

‘What else can a dead man wish for?’

Yuzuru picks up his bow and one of his arrows, standing up, the lifeless animal sliding from his lap. He points the missile to the moon, the silver tip piercing through his palm, smearing the head with his and the leopardess’ blood. ‘TELL ME!’

_Do you hate me now, my Yuzuru?_

‘Yuzuru.’

Patrick places a hand on his shoulder but the young man jerks it away.

‘Don’t touch me!’ He can barely breathe at the tumult of emotions in him, all of which he doesn’t know how and why. ‘Please don’t touch me.’

In between the trees, the scales of the imperial armor reflect the moonlight.

_Do it, Yuzuru. Be everything._

The young man draws the bow in direction of the forest, his fingers pulling the vane back and the string until it almost snaps from the tension.

‘It’s still full moon, Yuzuru!’ The chief of the East holds his wrist but the grief possesses the flower of the night in its claws and his tears blind him in the same lunacy.

‘Move Patrick.’

_Do it, my Yuzuru._

‘The forest needs you. You will be banished for eternity!’

‘I demand you in name of Nature to release me.’ The resolve is clearer in his voice and the general reluctantly obeys, his own prayer at his lips. ‘The East was never mine. Nothing was ever mine.’

_Be nothing, my Yuzuru._

I am nothing.

‘Forgive me, Patrick.’

Yuzuru closes his eyes and his fingers release the string. The arrow flies into the thicket of marred branches and burnt twigs. It catches a few leaves on its passage, the metallic tip perforating the crest of the equinox blossom, sinking into the empress’s heart.

Blood that does not mingle and yet they all bleed.

I am nothing.

_The stars are never wrong, my Yuzuru._


	2. Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of Nature that is gone, stabbed portraits and a choice for the empire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear all, I had to break this installment into one more chapter since I'm struggling with attention issues lately and I can't focus for long periods of time, which include writing. Anyhow, I hope you enjoy this chapter and always open to theories. 
> 
> Disclaimer: This is a work of FICTION. Art for art's sake. I feel like I'm a broken record by now.

You are so beautiful, my Yuzuru. My dancer of phantom steps and my sparrow of featherless wings. I will break them, my boy bathed in the light of the night, I will break your legs and your talons, your arms and your claws too. I will break them and I will heal you so you know my kindness and you will be addicted to it, like a drop of water on your dry tongue when you starve for my affection. You are so beautiful, my Yuzuru. Delicate as snow at my feet and ravishing like the river where I will drown you. Fear not, my dragonfly of the tempest and my silver rabbit from the moon. You will learn not to struggle and when you taste the gruesome despair, I will save you with my own life. My breath will become your air and the blood in my veins the same one on yours. You are so beautiful, my Yuzuru, but it is not enough. You gave me your loyalty and I will destroy it like the mutilated beast at the walls of my empire. Because you are everything and nothing, my Yuzuru. You are the root that withers in the thunder and the seed that sprouts in fire. You are the goddess that kills and the apparition that survives.

You cannot defy the stars, my Yuzuru. You cannot escape their will.

Just like how I could not.

 

 

The clouds in the firmament are infinite in their number as the rain continues to fall, the droplets becoming broken flakes in the atmosphere and ice when it reaches the violated ground. The hail, the tears of the sky, seems not to cease until the world soothes its sobs. It is already dawn, a new day at the cusp of the horizon. It is the window of the tryst with the shameless night, the rendezvous of the waxing sun and the waning moon, a courtship doomed by fate. What was once a tenure of green crowns and a sea of lime ferns, the curled leaves of exuberant cypresses to the weeping foliage of the young willows, is but land ravaged by the rape of flames of hatred that consumed the forest, engulfing all its offspring and spitting nothing, not even the bones. It is to be forever lost in time, not allowing visitors, only those with forgotten souls.

It forbids Javier too, Nature no longer seeping from the soles of his feet. He felt too in his heart the exact moment when his own sword pierced the leopardess, the ripping of flesh and the last breath that flew from the feline queen to his lungs, still lodged there, a memento from her motherly caress and her love for the flower of the night.

Yuzuru.

The tip of the arrow throbs in his palm, the blood of the huntress and the prey burning him. He had pulled it from the limp chest of his empress before the roots dragged her to their void, the scale armor and the jade pebbles too. A wasted life in the arrogance of mortality. Javier prays for her peaceful rest as he reaches the gates of the empire, the extensive walls mere blocks of sand waiting for their time to topple and turn to ashes, scattered in the wind to the infinite.

_The empire will crumble in your hands, Javier._

The commotion at the court is exalted to the unfolding of maps by the high generals and imperial stamps on the advisors’ hands. News of the downfall of the empress has reached their ears and their fake wails of the sacrifice of the emperor hops from one tongue to another, the promises of revenge spewing from their venomous mouths, when he recovers his coveted seat by the throne. The collective gasp is sincere in its surprise but Javier dispenses the formalities, wanting nothing more than their retirement.

The portrait of the previous emperor in the wall in front of him stares at his battered posture with mocking eyes.

‘My Lord,’ the tone of voice is annoying and the gait in their wooden sandals even more, ‘you’re alive.’

‘What can one emperor do if he is buried in the dust you all step onto?’ Javier lays the arrow on his lap, his hand gripping his thigh as the murmurs pollute the air.

‘Free our people, my Lord, from the evil hands of the of barbarians of the East!’

The rivers weep on the barren banks as they dry on the deserted deltas.

‘And one of the hogs relished in our tables and forged our swords as well. How could we have been tricked by that swine?’

_You will never be like me, Javier._

‘Savages sir, have they not dirtied you with the paste of their dregs and their rotten fruits?’ One of the men points at the remnants of silver mud in his face even when his imperial tunic is pristinely glimmering with the azure saturation of his status.

The leopard growls in the horror of the defiled body of his consort, he too dying of the sorrowful anguish that poisons his heart with each passing second.

‘They bathe in blood of children and they sleep in the skins of a different virgin they eat every night.’

_My father chose you, Javier._

‘They invade our dreams with creatures that swallow our souls and makes us slave of their pervert witchcraft.’

_You will never have Yuzuru, Javier._

‘The East must be eradicated!’

A young man of dark hair extends his hands to the sky as the ravens nibble on his fingertips, consuming his flesh.

‘My Lord.’

_My Yuzuru, Javier._

‘My Lord!’

_Never._

‘Silence!’ Javier’s command echoes in the closed walls of the inner chambers, the rice paper partitions almost tearing with the choleric irritation imbued in the expelled words. ‘Is the empire nothing but a game played by spoiled and wretched men like you?'

‘But, my Lord!’ The largest of the counsellors kneels in front of him. ‘The East is the only land that has not submitted yet. For the glory of your–’

‘My fortune?’ The emperor chuckles as he feels the portrait doing so too. ‘My name? Or your names?’

‘We would not dare, my Lord!’ They all nod in unison. ‘We wish for the prosperity of the empire through the ages gone by and those yet to come.’

‘The empire does not need another war, much less against innocents. Recall the army at the border immediately.’

‘They have murdered our empress, her kindness.’ The equinox flowers at the corners of the quarters seems to bloom at her mention.

‘So did we. Have we not killed and plundered enough? Have we no mercy for the women who bear the pains of birth and the men who seed the fields?’

‘You have been bewitched by the lady of the ebony hair, my Lord.’

‘They call her the flower of the night.’

‘Yes, with an omen on her lips and the ill-fated insolence. You have been possessed, my Lord.’

Javier pulls the imperial seal tied at his waist with such extorsion that the silk braid is torn to each individual thread. He throws the jade plate at the feet of his advisors, each of the shattered pieces resonating in the tiled floor. The room is completely silent as he stands, the knuckles of his hand already white from being fastened around the shaft.

‘The death of my wife is my failure as a husband but my concubine not being by my side is my failure as an emperor!’ He walks to the portrait of the former ruler, the sword of justice in his hands and a fan of orchids by his torso. ‘Leave. All of you.’

‘The higher consort will not return.’

‘Leave! Or I will personally add each one of your heads to my personal collection.’

_I wish the dragonfly may perch on the stag’s antlers in another life._

The cowardly march of the fleeing court fails to even make the ground shake, their steps weak and shirking from Javier’s wrath. He traces the image of the man that was once the chosen one, the ink smearing his fingertips and the captured gaze still taunting him with ridicule.

_The dragonfly has flown to my cage and he will never be yours, Javier._

Javier stabs the portrait with the feathery arrow, the silver tip gouging the pair of scornful eyes. The sharp edges cut through the paper canvas again and again, his own skin too, the blood from his palms blending with the strips of cloth. The previous emperor is shredded to holes and gashes, nothing but a revenant tying a knot at his throat.

‘I will find you, Yuzuru.’

 

 

‘Why didn’t you hunt me?’

The chief’s tent is immersed in darkness of a moon that insists on the vigil of mourning. The rain has frozen the last aria for the East and the lumps of hail commiserate with the soaked soil. The peppery dirt stings Yuzuru’s bare feet and thighs as he sits by the minuet fire, staring at the impotent flames. When he tries to reach for the embers, the ribbons of orange and red become whips and they lash on his fingers. He retrieves them at the razor greeting but he offers himself again for the punishment, until Patrick holds his hand, rubbing the sensitive marred spots.

‘Why didn’t you make me yours in the Full Moon?’ Yuzuru takes off the hare’s pelt at his shoulders, the fur drenched in crimson.

‘Would you have chosen me?’

The young man hisses as a cold towel, the water gelid and apathetic, descend from the nape of his neck down his spine, wiping the leopardess’ and his own blood away. There are a few cuts on his unblemished skin, shallow ones that don’t bleed but disfigure.

‘I’m sorry.’

Patrick outlines every peak and valley of the vertebrae, moving to the sternum and ribcage, charting each bone and cartilage with the utmost care. ‘The leopardess didn’t choose me.’ His knuckles tiptoe on the exposed manhood, base to the slit but he halts the stroke when his huntress shudders at the intimate touch. ‘I was never meant to have you. Never.’

‘Then why?’

‘Because,’ he keeps diluting the vivid shades on Yuzuru’s knees and shins, ‘I am not the one to take your freedom.’ He places a chaste kiss on the soles of the young man’s feet as he lifts them. ‘I dreamed of you every night. You would come to me, here, in this same bed where I first saw you naked, and you would entwine our arms together.’

‘I am sorry.’

‘You would lie here, just here, and you wouldn’t say anything because you prefer to let your body tell me how much you desired me. And you did. You would smile when I bit your armpits. You would pull me closer so I could drown in your wild scent of vanilla that I love so much and that I crave for every time I wake up before you. You would open your legs so I could dive right into you, your warmth on my sex, the softness in you, _Yuzuru_ , I would cry your name until my voice was rough and make Nature jealous of me possessing you. You would bite your lips Yuzuru, because you were shy to lose yourself in the pleasure you were taking from me. You were so beautiful, Yuzuru, your lips on mine and on me. You would come after guiding me to your core, to where I knew you would be completely mine, and I would drink of you, all your nectar, my elixir of immortality. You are so beautiful Yuzuru.’

‘I’m so sorry.’ A tear slides down the young man’s cheek as he lets Patrick brush a long strand plastered on his forehead.

‘I am jealous Yuzuru. I wish I could have had your virginity and your first cry. But I wasn’t chosen.’ His smile is a complacent one as he too struggles to contain the quavering of his voice. ‘Tell me Yuzuru, did he cherish you? Are you happy it was him?’

Yuzuru nods lightly and he takes a deep breath. ‘But it doesn’t matter anymore.’ He reaches for his collarbone, the mark of the flower of the night gone, all the petals erased with the blood. ‘Happiness has only cursed me.’

His silver dagger shines as if it was the moon even underneath the sheath. The young man weighs it on his palm, leaning the blade on the blaze until it gains an amber shield, dusk and twilight fused in one.

‘Do you believe in the stars, Patrick?’

‘They are never wrong. Children of the heavens who plays us like marionettes. They build us like castles in the sand today and we are but dunes tomorrow.’

He smiles pitifully, feeling the grains of his soul already sliding down the one-way hourglass. ‘Will you do it?’ Yuzuru hands him the knife, lighter with the heat and glowing in the same spark of fireflies.

‘If this is your wish.’ The ruler of the East hesitates as his huntress turns around, back to him. He takes the blade, raising it to Yuzuru’s neck.

‘I finally understand everything.’ He extends his hand, grabbing the air and releasing it immediately after. ‘We never wanted war. All we wanted was for Nature to not be forgotten in our minds. In the trees that grown in the sun, in the rivers that part from the spring hills, in the fish wiggling their fins from our streams, in the fawns learning to hop in the burrows of berry twigs, in the nights where our carnal instincts run free. And now it’s all gone. Nature has left me already.’

‘You gave us hope, Yuzuru.’

‘I am a monster that feeds on hope.’ He closes his eyes, letting his hand smoother over his mouth and asphyxiate him. ‘He taught me well. He told me I could be everything if Nature blessed me. That I could be all the things he could not. That I was just…’ The previous emperor is an illusion that walks in all his senses, the argent hair, the aroma of roasted wheat and brewed tea, the seduction of his lies, the coldness of his slaps. ‘… just a boy. Just a boy lost in this world.’

Yuzuru tilts his head back, the dark locks draping over his shoulders to his back. ‘Do it.’

‘Yuzuru–‘

‘Please.’

Patrick gathers the tresses, longer in their wetness, and he slashes through them. The wintry breeze slams on the unprotected patches behind Yuzuru’s ear and nape as the black threads fall to the ground, each one a regret elapsed, a flicker of faith extinguished. Together, his past severed.

‘Yuzuru.’ The general drops the dagger and hugs him with a crushing intensity. His arms encircle the taut silhouette, frail but no more fragile. ‘You have two empires in your hands. You have everything and yet, you choose him.’ He kisses the pale spot always hidden from sunlight, savoring for the last time the intoxicating flavor of his huntress.

‘I am nothing.’ He nudges closer to Patrick, back to chest, navel to hips, until there is no distance between them.

‘When will I see you again?’

‘When the mountains whisper my name to the wind.’

Yuzuru stands by the pyre, the fire already faded, only the ashes remaining. He scoops the earthen soot, blowing them from his palms in a shower of silver stardust. A blessing for those who need but do not know. Perhaps for forgotten souls.

‘Have you ever…’ Patrick bows to him. ‘… loved me?’

The young man is silent, his gaze already staring outside, at the imminent dawn. He smiles before walking away.

The commander of the East holds the remnants of the hair and brings them to his face, inhaling the sage and the rosewood too. ‘I’ve loved for the two of us.’


	3. Last Part

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The conclusion to the Concubine series.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear all, thank you so much for your support and I am forever grateful for all the kind words of encouragement and smashing of keyboards. This series means a lot to me so it's an honor to know you have made to the end of this journey. May the stars be with you. 
> 
> Disclaimer: This is a work of FICTION. Art for art's sake.

In the small hours before the advent of day, the walls of the imperial city are at their dreams of becoming the fences of the universe. The bricks fit in the most ostentatious puzzle of sizes and shapes held by the locks of gravity, and their encrusted stones, translucent crystals and ambers of butterflies, shine in one eye and die in the other. Perhaps they were the memories of the ancient tribes that drained the seas and lifted the ocean floors in the pangs of their vanity, only to be washed away by the floods of tampering with the sacred Nature.

Yuzuru licks one of the glimmering spots in the wall, the chapped piece of quartz rough on his tongue and almost cutting his flesh. It tastes of subtle volcano ash, of lava that once rivaled the bonfires of the forest. He will remember this flavor, like how he treasures the sweetness that the East has given him. He reaches the main gates, not dressed as the consort he is but as the feral child of the cypresses and pines. The tigress pelt hugs his arms and the thread of willow leaves at his exposed neck, his hair much shorter, is a sharp contrast to his pale complexion. His naked feet still bear the rosy shades of the leopardess’ blood that had mixed with his own.

‘Go back to your village peasant. This is not a place for beggars.’ He takes a further step forward but the two guards stop his advance.

‘I am here to see the emperor.’

The armed soldiers laugh as they shake their heads and gesture to the thickets in the horizon.

‘The emperor? And who do you think you are?’ The tallest of the guards runs a finger up Yuzuru’s cheek. ‘A courtesan? A witch? A pathetic farmer with stolen crops?’

‘Tell his majesty that his concubine has returned.’ The young man turns his face away but a hand holds him by the jaw.

‘You’re fairly pretty for a boy.’ The hand is disgustingly revolting. ‘Why don’t you warm my bed instead of the emperor’s?’

The dance of his bare feet is swiftly nimble, even more than the breeze that hails on his nape. In a single twirl, Yuzuru has unsheathed the sword at the guard’s hips and he stabs the man right through the muscle of the leg until the tip pierces the femur bone, while raising another blade at the throat of the other soldier. The groans are cowardly loud just like the fear that screams from the eyes.

‘I’m already cursed for this lifetime. Don’t extend it to eternity.’

The large gates open as if they too were frightened by the threat of the young man, the dragging of each wooden door marking the ground with a trail of dust. A boy in servant clothes, the combination of lapis and teal that Yuzuru adored so much, kneels with his forehead to the soil as their gazes meet. The hook of sleep is still hanging from his disheveled hair and cat’s eyes.

‘Are you really here, my ladyship?’

‘Do I look like a ghost, _Tian_?’ Yuzuru helps his retainer to his feet, adjusting the collar of his tunic. He smiles, cupping Boyang’s face with both his hands. ‘You have grown taller again. And handsome. All the maids in the harem must be chasing your pants.’

‘I am not in the inner quarters anymore.’ The boy blushes at the caress on his cheeks. ‘I serve only you, my highest consort.’

He nods. ‘I am at the emperor’s service.’

The two guards kneel immediately at the mention of Yuzuru’s title, apologizing for their initial rudeness and impertinence. The concubine ignores their wails as he steps into the imperial atrium, staring at the stripped branches of the plum trees. The bark of the trunks is cracked and falling apart but he can still hear the pulse in their hollows, the drops of life from within.

‘How is Javier?’ The name of the emperor rolls from his lips as if it had never left them.

‘Our Lord hasn’t been to the realm of dreams since you’ve left. He has been very lonely.’

‘And you, Tian?’ Yuzuru stops when the first ray of the sun illuminates the path in front of him. ‘Are you happy like you promised me you would?’

‘I am now because you are back.’ The young boy’s enthusiasm is contagious and he too smiles at the bouncing energy of his maid. ‘My loyalty is forever yours.’

‘I don’t want your loyalty.’ Yuzuru places a chaste kiss on the inside patch of skin of his wrists. ‘I will never have it.’

‘It is my choice to be by your side, my lady.’

Under the rising flare orb, the flicker of innocence in Boyang’s smirk is beautiful in its untarnished mirth. If the stars were never wrong, Yuzuru prays, let the fortune of the young boy never be obliterated with the shadow of his own moth wings.

‘Will you…’ He hesitates as he presses his thumbs on his servant’s arms. ‘… regret your choice?’

Boyang shakes his head vigorously. ‘Never, Yuzuru. Never.’

‘Don’t disappear, Tian.’ He whispers this plea as he hugs him. ‘Even when I do.’

‘Yuzuru?’

‘Go to the council and tell them I have returned.’ The consort and master gently pinches the flushed cheeks of his sky. ‘Tell the court I will meet them there when the sun hides behind the moon.’

‘Where? Why–’

‘Just do it, as my last order.’ He kisses his boy like all the other times he teased him for his stubborn naivety, playful and dainty, just a trifling contact of their mouths tickled by both their breathing. ‘A blessing for your journey.’

It is Tian, the boy with the name as large and broad as the heavens, that seeks for his master’s lips again, a crash of the consort’s plumpness with his own wet ones. Yuzuru suppresses a chuckle at the clumsiness of the fondle but he offers all of himself in that brief moment, lingering in the nostalgia of what he never had.

May the stars be merciful to those who believe them.

 

 

The walls of Javier’s quarters are velvet on Yuzuru’s fingertips, unlike the grainy city fortress, as he slides through them. The rice paper on the windows and the scrolls of stallion mane woven together too, he remembers them all, the ink of the violets and the dye of the poppies. It is here, he takes a step, where he first sang under the flame of the candles of the dragon lamps, and here, he takes another step, where he first knelt, not because he was submitting but because it was the stamp of his adamant defiance. The frankincense of the bronze pot, the sandalwood diffusing, the young man closes his eyes so he too becomes nothing but air in the emptiness of the room. He sways his hands back and forth, listening to the wind on the ceiling beams and the drum of the marble tiles on his feet. He dances with the feathery grace he once did under the constraining pearls, each jump reaching beyond the infinite and each landing almost levitating.

A hand catches his in the middle of his flight to liberty. He tries to invite him to the same rhythm but the emperor pulls him instead to his own embrace, both of them almost tumbling from the impact of their bodies. There is no vacillation when they reach for each other’s mouths, their lips crashing in the fever of their separation, pressed with renewed wanton until they bleed. They drink of the blood and saliva as their tongues seek to taste more, the moans of raw desire muffled by the contact of flesh on flesh.

The images of the chase and hunt flood Yuzuru’s mind and for brief seconds, the walls have crumbled and they are both under the full moon again, bathed in the dew of the forest and the fog of his own passion, virginal and rapturing. There are no words nor names when Javier guides him with his growing erection to the bed they have shared many nights before, their bed, the bed where no other consort had lain before, not even the empress. The pillow and the sheets still smell of his own vanilla and Javier’s pine and musk, the dose of aphrodisiacs already making him writhe as the emperor tears the tigress pelt and his own royal tunic, the desperation to have skin on skin, manhood on manhood, turning them into wild beasts in heat.

It is only a quick nod and brush of the hazelnut locks on his nipples when Javier penetrates him with the urgency to feel whole again, burying completely in his unprepared tightness. He cries at the pain and ecstatic aftertaste, tears welling in his eyes not from the ache of having the emperor’s length deep in him but the intensity of his own yearning too, of an addiction so strong that he wants to be filled and never let that fullness escape. He digs his nails into Javier’s lower back and the roundness of his buttocks, drawing him further into him, each of their unrestrained moans hauling him further and further to the abyss of their lust. It frightens him how much he already misses the emperor’s touch and how much he wants this hunger to be quenched.

Javier too dwells on the paradox of their bliss, on the reflection of his own urge to possess his consort thoroughly with each thrust. He kisses Yuzuru’s swollen lips over and over, trailing to his chin and sucking at the globules of sweat on the notch of his collarbones, gnawing on the skin until it turns lavender and morphs into crimson, marking a flower with his own teeth.

‘Be mine, Yuzuru.’ He locks their dazed gazes together, both almost seizing their climaxes. ‘Please be mine.’

The young man nods, another relished sob, as he mumbles with the last yarn of sanity. ‘Come in me. Please.’

The apex of their lovemaking fuses the two men in a moment outside of time, where they are everything and nothing, hunter and prey, emperor and concubine. Javier releases inside of Yuzuru, granting his wish (and hoping he will never leave that warmth), as the young man comes with the same ardor, his whiteness coating both their stomachs. The quarters are quiet except for their upheaving chests and ragged pants, and they revel in the serenity of the magic still ingrained in their wet skins.

Javier hugs his concubine from behind as he parts their bodies, Yuzuru moaning, his muscles still oversensitive and shivering from the frenzy of their orgasm. He places a chaste kiss on the glistening shoulder blades, basking in the afterglow of their sex. His gaze never resigns from the young man who stares at the window. He doesn’t know if it’s a butterfly or a dragonfly that flies past the blurred rice paper, the silhouette of the wings matching both. Yuzuru reaches his hand for them but the emperor interlaces their fingers.

‘Isn’t it beautiful?’

‘You are beautiful, Yuzuru.’ He places another kiss closer to the neck.

‘A short life but guiding people with–’

‘With their frail bodies.’

Yuzuru nods, smiling at the words he once said to Javier. ‘Will you do anything for me, my Lord?’

‘Anything. Anything you wish for.’

The concubine turns around until they are both facing each other. He dips his fingers in the remnants of his semen on the other man’s navel and brings the essence to his lips, painting them in their own mating ritual.

‘I want to be free. I want to know the taste of freedom.’ He kisses them as slowly as he can, savoring his and Javier’s tang that mingle into a zest he had never tried. ‘Execute me, my Lord.’

‘What?’ Javier searches for traces of jest in Yuzuru’s eyes but finds none. ‘What are you saying?’

‘I killed the empress, your lady and highest consort.’

‘She was wrong. She–’

‘The council wants me dead.’ The young man places his palm on top of Javier’s heart, soothing the quickening cadence. ‘They will not forgive me. Allow their intention to come true. You are the emperor and you have to honor your wife. Execute me.’

‘No.’ He shakes his head. ‘Not this. Please.’

‘Your advisors will question you, my Lord. You cannot lose your po–’

‘I will kill them all!’ He grips Yuzuru’s wrist at his chest, pushing him further into the layers of cotton and swan and crane feathers. ‘Let them talk. I will execute the whole court instead! Not you, Yuzuru. Not you.’

The young consort closes his eyes, the tranquil smile never leaving his lips. He hovers his fingertips on Javier’s face, copying the contour of the frown in the forehead, the eyelids, the shape of his nose and mouth, the stubborn petite hairs at the chin, a phantom image to be imprinted in his mind forever.

‘You are not him Javier.’ He places the hand of the hunter on his face, mimicking the same motion. ‘You are not a cruel man. You will be a much better emperor than he ever was.’

‘Is he…’ Javier combs the dark strands, short, no longer the locks once held by the garnet dragonfly. ‘… is he the one who has your loyalty?’

The young man nods. ‘My feet, my legs, my arms, my breath, my hair, I gave him everything. But my Lord,’ he sucks the thumb and the finger at his lips, the innocence of the lost boy he once was on his trembling figure, ‘I wish I had given my loyalty to you, Javier.’

‘What have we done wrong?!’ The emperor punches the mattress over and over, his rage turning his knuckles white and the forlorn misery clenching his lungs until oxygen lodges in his throat, refusing to descend to his lungs. ‘What have I done wrong?’

‘It is written in the stars.’ Yuzuru pulls Javier to him, the hunter with the stag mark nudging to the crook his neck. ‘I will never be free, my Lord. I don’t have the key for this cage.’ There is a fog crowding his sight but he vows not to cry. ‘You are the one who can open it, Javier. Please.’

The last crystals of the hourglass stroll at their own whim, faster than either of the men wished for. They both lie in silence, their bodies not allowing even the air to stand between their skin. They don’t move nor talk, only the chirping of the orange finch on the window frame and the gale playing its flute against the ceiling. The quavers of their own fear are caught in their embrace, dissolving into a promise for another life.

_May the dragonfly perch on the stag’s antlers one day._

_I will find you, Yuzuru._

When dusk collapses on the horizon, the sun eclipsed underneath the moon for its awaited slumber, Javier tightens his grip on Yuzuru’s waist, unwilling to let him go. The young man brings both the hunter’s hands to his lips, partaking a fragment of his soul in them.

‘You are the only emperor I ever had.’

A single tear falls from Javier’s almond eyes as he watches the leaving silhouette of his concubine, further and further away, until it disappears completely with Nature.

 

 

It is unsure how the legend of the emperor and the flower of the night became the favorite one through all the land bathed by the moonlight. Some say the emperor died of grief when his consort finally returned to the seabed of foam while stories of how the emperor executed all the dissidents who conspired to overtake the East, his own sword carving into the ribcages of his enemies and plucking their hearts so he could feel their last beating in his palm, flourished among the most romantic dreamers. There isn’t a single peasant who doesn’t know the name of Javier, the emperor who freed the Cardinal States, returning freedom to those who never wished to have it taken. A mighty emperor, ruler with the divine scepter, who left no descendants and no successors. These are warring times but no one dares to assault what is left of the empire, for fear or for respect, no one will ever know. Perhaps for the concubine that once blessed the land with everything and nothing.

On the night of the Full Moon, in years forgotten by calendars, Javier returns to the forest, the cypresses’ boughs covered in their green garments and the willows’ roots interlaced into ribbons adorning the soil of sage and berries. He kneels at the entrance, at the forked path marked with ashen dirt, and the thicket invites him to their core, where he once loved a wild prey of dark hair and roars of a leopardess. The silver dust is still there, on the ground, never swept away by the rain. He kisses that spot, inhaling the aroma of vanilla. The scent of his Yuzuru.

‘The tales were not true after all.’

Javier still recognizes that voice, of the man that was once his own loyal general. The leather and the wolf’s skin are nothing like the armor he donned in the battlefield, nor his bow of birch compared to the imperial saber. Patrick looks haggard, his irises receded into the sockets, he much slender and robbed of a joy that Javier too missed. He notices how the ruler of the East has a braid of black tresses tied at his wrist. The other man catches his gaze at it and raises his arm, hiding nothing of the memento of his huntress.

‘I understand why Yuzuru did it. But I will never bow down to you anymore.’

Javier nods. ‘You should not bow down to anyone.’

Despite the spar of their animosity, Patrick lights a fire under the moondew, whispering the same words the young man would. The emperor too prays for Nature and her prosperity.

‘There is no one who can replace Yuzuru.’ He burns one of the arrows in the pyre. ‘I wish we all had lived in different times.’ There is no smoke as the flames consume the shaft and the vane, melting the iron tip with its prowess.

‘In times when we all had peace and he could smile freely.’

Javier looks at the sky, at the map of the constellations, the celestial bodies in their frugal chase for dawn.

‘Do you think we would have met in another life?’

‘Maybe.’ Patrick chuckles as the ribbons of crimson and chrome climb above their heights. ‘We can wait until the next one to see.’

‘Maybe the fire will have burnt us all.’ The heat is comfortable though, and the emperor let the embers envelop him in their warmth. An affection that it’s almost feverish. Like his concubine’s touch.

‘Then for sure the wind would gather our ashes and bury us in the desert sand together.’

‘Except Yuzuru. He will be loved by the fire.’

‘No.’ The ruler of the East points to the brightest star in the black curtains of the night. ‘He will just return to where he really belongs.’

Stars that are never wrong.

But how right were they?

‘But these are not different times, Javier.’ Patrick unsheathes the silver dagger at his hip.

‘What could have changed?' He gathers a handful of the red soil at his feet, the tiny particles slipping through his fingers.

‘Nature has favored you but I will not.’

‘I didn’t expect you would.’

The howl of the wolf resonates through the crowns of the forest, the laughter of the children once again navigating through the trunks and the drums of snake’s skin are hammered in the orchestra of their pulses. Patrick throws the sword in front of Javier, a simple offering without any lethal intent.

‘Leave these grounds and return to your empire. There is nothing left for you here and nothing that you can take from us anymore. We are hunters and we do not choose our preys in the night.’

The argent blade is light, almost weightless as he picks it and yet it cuts through the air with honed precision. A sacrificial knife, not made to kill but to forge life. A sword of contradictions and a fan of paradoxes like the prey and consort that once wielded it.

‘For protection?’

‘It’s not mine to have. It was never mine to have.’

Javier throws the dagger at the fire. The charcoal engulfs the edges and the pommel until they glow in the pyre, the orange beautiful as the sunrise after the dark, illuminating the silver dust around him. When he looks beyond the flames, the general is already gone, his footprints nowhere marked in the earth.

 

 

The wintry gusts scatter the sand of the dunes to the edges of the cliff, the memories of all the rocks and carcasses twirling in the field of sprouting dandelions. The salt of the marriage of the oceans and the seas tastes of faint lime in Javier’s lips as he stares at the precipice, at the abyss ravaged by the waves of the stormy tide. He closes his eyes for brief seconds just to listen to the wail of the soaring gulls and terns, the foam bursting at their beaks and the flapping of their whirlwinds.

A swarm of butterflies glides in direction of the inland, towards the massive clouds of fleece over the empire. The last one, a dragonfly of shadow wings and crimson body of a garnet, poses on Javier’s finger. It flies away as he tries to touch it, not far, close, taunting him to follow its march and escaping immediately as he takes a step.

Javier smiles.

‘You are finally free, my concubine.’


End file.
